EverydaySpy Podcast - CIA SPY Couple DECODE Marriage | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 14

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

here are two words that immediately strike hope and sadness into the heart of every married parent… 'Date Night!' Hope because we all remember what it's like to fall in love and have uninterrupted romantic time together. And sadness because we know how impossibly difficult it is to relive those days once you have children. Jihi and I share your pain and are on our own path toward perfecting date night. If you want our recipe for great connection, romance, and mommy-daddy time, tune in! We'll give you a few spy skills to win over the kids along the way… Ready to join us in SkunkWorks? 👉 Apply FREE here: https://everydayspy.com/skunkworks Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All relationships are transactional. And I'll make the point that that's not what you believe. That's the truth. Like that has been demonstrated anthropologically, sociologically, and psychologically. That relationships are all transactional. All of them. It's date night. Hooray.

I love date nights. Me too. And we don't get to do it very often. And I'm sorry for that. We always talk about how we should have more dates. But we don't actually take. make more dates. You know, it's a combination of we're busy.

Right. And you have to find somebody you trust to be with the kids. Yeah. And, you know, we're, so that's interesting. We are actually luckier than most because we have a nanny. We have a live-in nanny. Yeah. We've been taking, we've chosen the nanny route since 2019, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah. So we homeschool our kids. We keep our kids at home. We oversee their education. oversee their diet and everything else. And then we kind of push that through for reinforcement through a nanny. And that's not, that's not typical for most people. And that, I mean, we've, we've been blessed and we've been lucky, but we've also seen the benefits of like, our children have constant engagement from a responsible, respectable adult. Yeah. And that adult has changed

a few times, but it's always such rich engagement. So I feel like as much as I'm very proud, of the fact that we've engaged and employed nannies, it doesn't make me feel any better about the fact that we have not taken date nights. We have no excuse not to take date nights. Well, you know, I think that part of it is, you know, the importance that we have put on date nights has evolved over the years. I remember when we first had our son, there was another couple, a business owner of a brick-and-mortar business

that had a daughter, you know, our son's age. And when they had their second, which I think was about a year before we had our daughter, they started taking date nights. The husband prioritized, not just date nights, but he prioritized hiring a babysitter once or twice a week so his wife could just go be by herself, right? Yeah. But I remember them doing that and putting the money into it.

And at the time, I conceptually was like, okay, I get that that's important. and everybody says it's important. Right. But I think we're okay. We're fine. Like we worked from home at the time. We were homeschooling the kids. We're around each other all the time, right?

Like, who needs a date night? You guys work in a brick and mortar shop. Right. One person's in the shop. One person's at home. Right. You're never really together. So you need date nights.

Yeah. But we don't. Right. And I think, you know, we were having dinner with some friends recently. And it really brought home this conversation you were having with a couple who have been married, at least as long as we have, but have no children. Yeah. And you were, I think you started the conversation of, you know, what's it like to be married

for so long without kids? Like, do you get bored? Do you feel, you know, like your, like you're as in love now as you were when you first got together? And out of that conversation, this really interesting concept came out where when you are without kids, all of your attention goes into each other, right? Because the gentleman, the husband was saying that they actually plan time apart. Yeah. Right? They plan vacations apart with their own friends. And it's because all of their attention where they're together is on each other.

Where when you're married... And they need a break. And they need a break. They need a break from having being the sole provider, being the sole recipient of all the other person's attention. Yes. Which is so different than us. So different than any married parenting couple out there. Because when you are married and you have kids, you might be together all the time, but your focus is never on each other. It's on the kids. It's on work. And that's so different from like the dating experience.

And the dating and even the engagement and early marriage experience, it's all about just pouring your love into your partner. Yeah. And then you have children and you still want to pour your love in. to your partner. But what you find is the children just suck up everything. They suck up the energy. They suck up the love. They suck up the patience. Yeah. They suck up the creativity. They suck up everything. So then when you are with your partner, you're like, so what did you do with the kids today? And that's it. And that's how the kids become the center of conversation. So we are now doing a better job of having a date night, at least once a month, I would say. Yeah.

My travel schedule gets to be a pain in the ass for both of us. Yeah, we're like squeezing in the date nights. And I'm like, I'm on the verge of signing a deal for a second season with History Channel doing there Beyond Skinwalker show because it's been such a hit. Yeah. Which is going to just destroy date nights for a good part of Q3 and Q4. Yeah. So thank you for putting up with that. You're welcome.

But when we do get a chance to go on date nights, what I find is really interesting is what we do with our time. Because we don't go out there and like drink hard and party hard. and stay up late. And like a lot of times we end up just, we go to the beach. Yeah. We take a long walk. Mm-hmm. We find, we don't even go out to eat, really.

We go to the grocery store. Yeah. And pick up just. A simple, clean meal that we know is going to have us feeling good. Yeah. Yeah. And we get some kombucha. Mm-hmm.

And then we go watch a, we watch a grown-up movie. Yeah. Uninterrupted. You know, and I think a lot of. It's a glorious, and it's a glorious date. It's glorious and it's connecting. And I think it's fair to admit to everybody that it hasn't always looked like that. No, that's true.

In the beginning, when we first started having our date nights. I hated date nights. Oh, my gosh, when we first started. Right, because I think what happened to us was we waited so long. And, you know, I was reading this statistic recently that, you know, half of marriages that end within the first seven years. And it makes total sense. And it makes total sense. I mean, even looking back at our own marriage, I remember that's about the time when it

starts to get rough. We had the two kids, right? You were starting the business. I mean, all of our, like. Career pressure is kind of peaking. And then you've been married long enough to realize that you don't get your way anymore. Yeah. And you're right.

So when you combine children with career, with the loss of your own, independent decision-making and you put them all together at the same time. Yeah. Not to mention the fact that seven years of marriage, like the financial pressure starts to build up too. Yeah. Because there's probably property that's being owned or there's the idea of buying property or who knows what, right? But there's so much pressure in that short period of time that it's such a transformation

from what it was seven years before. Right. It's a hard, hard place. Right. And they talk about, you know, that just like, you're saying that there's so much transition happening during that period and oftentimes the the killers of marriage early on are contempt and criticism right so when you you know in our case we should define those too because I remember when when we learned this concept of the difference between contempt and criticism

it was kind of mind-shattering to me yeah so tell me remind me what you so I remember you were blown away by it I was blown away by it because contempt is essentially the silent accusation of someone else's behavior. That's contempt. Yeah, I'm better than you. You're not doing good enough. Right. Yeah.

And then criticism is just, I don't like what you're doing or I would prefer something different. So they're not the same thing. And because they're not the same thing, the way that we behave towards our partner when we're feeling one or the other is also different. Right. And it's not just, this doesn't just relate. to our partner, this relates to every human being we meet, our business partners, our clients,

our customers, our family, our own parents. Contempt and criticism are not the same thing. And they're for sure not the same thing as approval or permission or enjoyment. Those are all the positives, right? But what we're talking about here, like you said, inside those first seven years, the roots of contentment or of contempt and criticism really start to take shape. Yeah, because as your responsibilities start to shift, you have children, maybe you're changing jobs. I mean, for us, that's what happened. We had a child. We left the CIA, which wasn't something I had ever expected to do, honestly.

I never expected to do it either. And then we started in the private sector working from home, homeschooling, having another child, you went to, you were working full time, going to school full time to get your MBA and starting a business. I had just had a second baby. I had a toddler at home. I mean, so it makes sense that during that time, and then we weren't taking time out for ourselves, right, to nurture our relationship, which I think is funny because human intelligence is all about relationships. Maybe intelligence in general, right? There's all kinds, you know, Mazant and Siggins and Emmens.

No relationship needed. No relationship needed. Just look at a picture. But the core of intelligence is human intelligence. And human intelligence is a relationship business. And people don't realize that. Right. People don't realize that it's not about outsmarting someone else.

It's about building a relationship that's an asymmetrical relationship. Right. And so, you know, in human intelligence, you're taught. you have to nurture that relationship. You have to put time into nurturing your relationship with the other person and making sure they feel heard and cared for and they want to talk to you, validated, right? Appreciated, heard. Because in our normal everyday life, so many of us do not feel heard.

Do not feel validated. Do not feel appreciated. And when that piles up, it creates a vulnerability in all of us. Yeah. In everyday life, and for the typical person, that vulnerability is what leads to adultery. Right. It's what leads to alcoholism. It's what leads to experimental drug use.

It's what leads to divorce. Yeah. Emotional abuse even, right? Yeah. Like it leads to all these things because you can't deny the vulnerability that's being built. Right. When you are in these positions of high stress and your closest partner. isn't what you need them to be when you need them to be it.

Right. It creates a vulnerability. And what we're trained to do at CIA is find exactly those people whose closest, most trusted advocate is compromised to them so that we can step in and replace that person and build this asymmetrical relationship, this artificial relationship that makes them feel safe and makes them feel heard and makes them feel validated to the point where they,

they will do anything to maintain a relationship with you. Right. But those same skills can be used in creating genuine relationships, right? Or advancing genuine relationships. Exactly. So spending intentional time with your partner or with somebody that you care about, that you care about that relationship, I mean, I think that's the key is the intention behind it, right?

Deliberately making quality time, doing a shared activity together, or having them feel heard and validated. Yeah, CIA taught us that all human currency, right, all human trade in terms of relationships, is the same coin. And the coin has two sides. One side is manipulation. And that's the side that we're trained.

And that's the side that many people default to without training, where you take advantage of relationships. You take advantage and abuse the trust that other people give you to gain something for yourself, right? So when you manipulate, you're getting other people to take action that's in your best interest. Right. But the flip side of the coin that you and I discovered being at CIA and that CIA itself sometimes leans into is motivation. So one side of the coin is manipulation. The other side of the coin is motivation.

Motivation is getting somebody, motivation is getting somebody to do what's in your, what's in their best interest for them. Did I say that right? Manipulation is getting somebody to do what's in your best interest. Yeah. Even if it doesn't help them. Correct. Motivation is getting somebody to do what's in their best interest because it helps them and it helps you. Right.

Yes. I think I got that right. Yeah. So one way street versus a two way street. Yes. And two, but it's two sides of the same corner. and it's the only social currency we really have. Yeah.

So when we build relationships as a married couple in business, in personal life, the goal is to find the motivational side of that coin. How do you validate, engage, make each other feel heard in a way that creates net positive results, mass productive results for everybody? Right. Date nights are one of those things. Yeah, exactly. And then I think, you know, when it comes to building a network or building business relationships, date nights aren't too far off from being what you do with those people that you network and work with as well, right? You want them to feel like you are interested in them, like you value what they are doing and that you can, you've talked about this before.

you value what that person is doing or what that business is doing, and how can I help? The specific term that we used at CIA was called Social Capital. Yes. We're building social capital. Social capital is what the coin between motivation and manipulation really is, right? And you build that social capital through interactions that are positive. Right. So sometimes those positive interactions are just a conversation.

Sometimes those positive interactions are just support, right? You're having a hard day. I come sit next to you and I don't even talk to you. Yeah. But you know that I'm next to you, right? That's social capital. You're very realistically building the currency of relationship when you do those acts. Sometimes social capital is an entertaining conversation.

Sometimes it's a mentally stimulating conversation. Sometimes social capital is you telling somebody you disagree with them. Right? When you stand up to a boss or when you keep a friend from making a bad decision. Yeah. And we think that that's negative. We think that that's something that's going to damage the relationship, when in fact it's something that's improving the relationship

because the currency that you're using is so much higher. It's the difference between a $1 bill and $100 bill. Yeah. Telling somebody they look nice, here's a $1 bill. Yeah. Keeping somebody from making a potentially devastating decision in their life is $100 bill. The currency is the same. The denomination is much different.

And what we're talking about is building that social capital because just like real capital, you can trade it. Right. You can spend it, you can save it, you can invest it. Yep. And I've always talked about how I believe that all relationships are transactional. It's not very romantic. I know we've met people who were like, well, that's not, that doesn't sound very nice.

You know, that doesn't sound very loving. But in truth, all relationships are transactional. And I'll make the point that that's not what you believe. That's the truth. Like that's, that has been demonstrated anthropologically, sociologically, and psychologically. Right. That relationships are all transactional. All of them.

And so I think part of building social capital is assessing what the other person needs, right? How does that other person receive? I mean, when it comes to a personal relationship, there's, you know, you and I talk about love languages, right? But even in a non-personal relationship, what does the other person need that you can provide that's going to help you build that social capital? Because just like you said, you know, going into the office and complimenting your boss's suit, maybe he doesn't care what he's wearing. Maybe what he needs is somebody to take, you know, some burden off of his plate and help him out. And if you can assess and figure out what that is through multiple interactions with them, then you can really start building, you know, lots of social capital that you can cash in later. Yeah. So you were saying that that the average marriage

was it what was the statistic? The average marriage starts no the average divorce starts within seven years. So about 50% of divorces happen within the first seven years. Did you find any other research about like what makes marriages last or or like multiple divorces or anything like that? So the data shows that what helps a marriage continue last is facilitating and protecting open communication and continuing bonding. So one of the reasons that date nights are so important, even if it only happens once a month, is because it creates that bond between the couple and it helps facilitate that communication.

And that's what I was saying earlier where, you know, in the beginning, our date nights weren't very romantic. Yeah. In the beginning, our date nights were talking a lot about kids, talking a lot about work, arguing. Arguing about where we were going to eat, when we were going to eat, how short our time window was before we had to get back to the babysitter. Yes. It was miserable. Yeah. But it was the beginning of us having one-on-one open communication because otherwise we were at home with everybody else and we didn't even get to have those arguments. It was really bad. Like the original date nights that we would go on, we were saying. still at CIA. So, man, I was working like 15-hour days sometimes. So it's like you're working all day long. And even though we were in the same building, towards the latter half of our career,

we were in the same building, but we were both senior like management level people. Yeah. We were not having lunch together anymore. Going on, yeah, going on two dates. Yeah, we were not taking walks together like we did when we were younger officers. So, you know, after being away from you for 15 hours rushing on the way out the door, rushing on the way back, and then paunting our little child that we had only spent, what, 30 minutes with into the hands of a babysitter so that we could get out the door in time because we only have four hours. It was such a painful, painful period of time. Yeah. So you mentioned bonding in that metric about what keeps relationships going. And open communication, I feel like is something that's obvious to all of us. It's certainly obvious to me.

and that's why I think I push you so much and tease you so much about just tell me what you're thinking. Don't sugarcoat it. But the bonding piece, I never, truly I never understood the bonding piece until we had children. And even then, I have to admit, as embarrassing as it is, I still really didn't understand bonding until maybe just the last few weeks. Really? Yeah, because when we had our first child, it was very important to you. and the midwife was talking about it and the pediatricians were talking about that bonding period.

Yes. Where, like, you know, you hold your child against your skin, you get used to their smell, they get used to your smell, and there's like a comforting factor there. And of course, homeschooling and raising our kids at home, we've learned how important it is to bond with them through simple processes, like just cuddling with them, sitting with them, reading with them in your lap.

Yeah. These little things that go so far in terms of creating a bond between you and your child. The same bond can exist between you and your spouse or you and someone else too. But the embarrassing thing that I want to admit to is that last night, a lie, our daughter, came into our room

at like 3 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. And she came in, she burst through the door. You're half asleep. I'm half, no, we're fully asleep. I'm fully asleep. Being brought to consciousness by the slamming sound of an opening door

and a three-year-old in tears. Yeah. Or three-year-old, a six-year-old in tears. Yeah. And she mumbles something, and I think I hear the word tummy, which, of course, gets my parents, you know, antenna up, and I don't even know what you heard. Because you just kind of zombie walked out the door with her.

Yeah, I was like, whatever she needs, I'm going to get it. I think I heard broken marvel. And I asked her to repeat it. I was so asleep. I was like, broken Marvel. I don't understand. And she's repeating, repeating. Finally, I just landed on her Marvel.

sheet. Her blanket? Her blankets off. I'm like, okay, I can fix this. Like, whatever it is, just don't cry loudly to wake up your brother. All I'm thinking is, please don't wake up your brother. So, so we both go into her room and you end up leaving, because I tell you, I understand, she's saying broken model. Yeah, broken model ship is what she was saying. She has a model ship next to her bed that she accidentally knocked over. So, so I shoo you out so you can get your sleep because I know, today's date night. Mommy needs to get sleep now. And I want to like you later.

Because there's self-interest going on here. But in all seriousness. So, you know, I comfort the baby. I comfort her and I tell her, we'll fix your model in the morning. Don't worry about it. And then she lays down. And I can see, and she's always been this way. She has always seen physical touch as a comforting and soothing activity.

Yeah. So she does her normal like, you know, when she's upset. I itch, right? My legs are twitchy. She starts talking about these things that we now understand mean. She wants to be touched. She wants somebody to rub lotion slowly on her back. She wants you to kind of give her a little bit of a leg massage.

She wants to be touched because she finds soothing in the touch. Yeah. Our daughter is the one that taught me that not all physical touch is sensual. Interesting. physical touch can simply be comforting, which you've been trying to drill that into me for 13 years. Because I'm like, I'm like, you're touching me. Let's go. And you're like, no, I just want to touch you to connect. And I'm like, I don't know what that means. You're like, why do you always fall asleep when I rub your back? Because it's so soothing. That's the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

But so a lie is the one that taught me because I see it now. And last night I could see it. Like it finally really dawned on me like, oh, now I know this dance. And I love this dance. I'm bonding with my daughter as I rub lotion into her back. And then she, of course, she's half asleep and she's like, I have eczema on my fingers. And I know, oh, I know what she wants next. She wants me to rub lotion on her hands.

And she's looking for that slow. touch. And she has always suffered from eczema, for sure. Yeah. But, like, you can see how it comforts her, and she's so much like me. Because those same things always comforted me as a kid, too. And I realized that somewhere along the line, as an adolescent or as a young adult, I lost track of the fact that touch can just be supportive and comforting. And it became this thing that was always supposed to be sensual or sexual. Interesting. Yeah. And, yeah. And, And she's so different from our son because our daughters, just like you said, she wants, she is the one that if you call to her to sleep for three minutes, which means you just spoon behind her, your hand, you know, on her back or on her hip, she falls right asleep. But our son has zero interest in being cuddled.

Right. For the most part. And his whole life he's been like this. He is, he's not a cuddler. He likes hugs. He likes hugs. And fist bumps. Yeah.

And he likes when he's. when he's hurt or when he's sad, he wants some physical touch. But most of the time, he just wants proximity. Yes. Be close to me, but I want my own space. Right. And so, you know, for us as parents, we've had the benefit of, you know, lots of time with them to learn to make these assessments of essentially what will be social capital for them.

Exactly. We're building social capital. They're building social capital. They don't even realize it's what they're doing. Right. Right. Like my daughter sits there and she's like, Daddy, I don't even know what she's just trying to go to sleep. Yeah.

She has no idea that I am gaining so much value. Yeah. From having the opportunity to stroke her as she falls asleep and be the one that gets her down. And I'm not just building social capital with her. I'm building social capital with you. Yeah. Because then I come to bed after spending 15 minutes comforting her and you're like, thank you. Yeah.

I appreciate you. I didn't know what she was talking about. I'm so confused and whatever else, right? Like, it's this, it's multifaceted. Yeah. And I think the reason that it's important to understand the value of social capital isn't because of making social capital. Social capital is like real money.

It's like fiat currency. The power of money is not in making it and squirling it away. Right. It's in making it and spending it. Right. Spending your social capital is what creates all of, the change that you're looking for in your world. Right.

Asking for that favor. Asking for that promotion. Right. Negotiating a lower rate or a higher rate, whatever's in your best interest, right? Talking about coordinating travel logistics or deals or, you know, getting help, whatever it might be, it's when you spend the social capital that you've been accruing. And that's the thing that people skip. Yeah. People just, they store it and they stash it and they're like, well, if I do it for long enough,

Then one day, this person is just going to automatically do something nice for me. And what people don't realize is that the cadence of earning and spending social capital is really important because social capital actually goes stale. It has a shelf life. It has a definite shelf life. So you have to be cognizant of what social capital you're earning and how you are going to be able to spend that in a timely manner. And then this goes right to the heart of what you were saying, that all relationships are transactional. Yeah. A relationship that's transactional doesn't mean it's not intimate.

Correct. It doesn't mean it's not real. It doesn't mean it's not professional. It doesn't mean it's not genuine. Every relationship is what people think it is. It's intimate. It's loving. It's caring.

It's genuine. It's professional. Yeah. And it is also transactional. Yes. And if you understand the transactional element of it, you can actually delve into deeper levels of intimacy, professionalism, positive,

growth like anything, right? It's an amazing thing once you understand that simple concept. We use it in our business. We use it in our client interactions. We have automated social capital in many ways when it comes to how people interact with our digital products. Our digital products are designed to intentionally encourage and connect with people and then systematically challenge them to go to the next level. And that process is very much a social capital process that's boxed up and automated. Right. And we do it that way for a number of different reasons.

Part of it is profitability, but the better part of it is utilization. Because if you want your student, if you want your customer to succeed, you have to enforce the criteria for success. Right. Otherwise people don't try as hard. It's like having that gym coach, oh, that's exactly what it is. Oh my gosh, like that was an aha moment. the difference between your phys ed coach and your actual athletic coach, right? Did you take,

was phys ed a thing in Florida when you were a kid? Yes, they used to make us walk the track in the middle of the summer heat. Because they didn't care. So much. Because the phys ed teacher is really like the football coach who has to teach algebra and he has to do a period of phys ed. He's not invested in you. No. He's just going through the motions. Yeah. Of this week, you're going to learn to jump her Because that's what the school system curriculum says you have to learn. And I'm like, do you see me right now? I'm not going to make the hurdle. Then just sit on the bench.

That's completely different than that same person, you know, teaching the football squad at 4 o'clock in the afternoon when he's invested and engaged, right? Yeah. And I'm using a male example, female examples work as well. But that's the difference. You know, the person who's really understanding the value of social capital who's really trying to build it, spend it, invest it, is the person who sees the benefit to themselves and wants to advance the relationship. Exactly.

There has to be a level of, you know, when you're on the motivation side of the coin, there has to be a level of understanding how advancing the other person advances you as well, right? You have to have that in your sites. I'm telling you this right now, because this is an awesome conversation. And I love that we don't really plan these conversations. this is such an important concept that I absolutely want you to share this video with somebody who's important to you in your life because they need to understand this concept. At the very least, they need to understand this concept so they can better understand you

so that they can see that you're trying to grow your relationship with them. So forward this video, share this video to your business partner, share it with your spouse, share it with your children, share it with your mom, share it with your dad. Again, let us be the ones that start an awkward conversation so that you don't have to take responsibility for it. Let us be the ones that, I mean, this is what we do to our parents all the time. Your dad loves it, thank goodness, because your dad loves CIA. Yeah.

But we always are like, hey, this thing that you did when we were kids or this thing that you do to us as adults or this thing that you do with me, I don't like it. Or vice versa, I'm trying to build a class. relationship with you by using CIA tactics. Now, not everybody's going to respond well to that. So I defer to you whether you want to tell them that that's what you're doing. But definitely share this video with somebody you care about so that you can have a richer, deeper, more productive relationship with them. Whether it's a loving relationship, an intimate relationship, a friend-based relationship, personal relationship, a professional relationship, get this concept

of social capital out to them and learn how to use it for yourself. So I want to make sure that we leave time to answer questions. Was there a good question that you saw come up on yes? Yeah. Go for it. I was like, I'm trying to wrap. I'm still hooked on social capital. I'm like, I don't even remember the questions. Somebody asked recently in the comments, how much time, how much interaction did you guys have when you were on your individual assignments? Which I think is very apropos. That's actually a great question because our CIA career, our CIA career, and we were a tandem. We finished CIA as a married, operationally tandem couple,

which means we were married. Our covers were aligned. We were operational together, and we had essentially complete transparency into each other's operations when we were operating in tandem. In tandem, yeah. So our careers kind of went from two separate CIA officers

with no overlap, and then we became this tandem couple with complete overlap, and then the successes that we had in the field pulled us apart again professionally. So we kind of had a mix of interactions, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Also, in the beginning, when we were first dating, we were in training.

But by the time we moved in together, we had finished, and we were on our assignments. And you were sent TDI places. I was sent TDI places. So a TDI is when they send us on a temporary assignment for, you know, one to a few weeks. Right. And during those assignments, we didn't really get a chance to interact. We had some ability to, you know, email each other internally. Yeah.

But that was really the extent of it. We couldn't talk on the phone. There's no I-Ming each other. There's, you know, there was, we couldn't use social media to talk. So during those weeks that we would be separated on these assignments, we couldn't talk about what we were doing because we were in separate offices. and we didn't really get to talk to each other during. So we would just send each other these signs of life.

And we always had a communication plan, a commo plan in place. And to a certain extent, I mean, I have to admit it was sexy. Yeah, in the beginning, for sure. In the beginning, you were super sexy because it's like, oh, like the woman I sleep with is on a secret mission and I can't talk to her, but I'm going to pounce on her as soon as she gets off the plane. It was super sexy, right? And then, like, as we got married, and then we started, like, combining bank accounts and insurance policies and boop, boop, beep, boop, all the administrative marriage stuff, it became a lot less sexy.

Because now I was like, wait a second, wait a second. You're my wife, you're being called on an op, and I don't have any insight into what's going on in that op. I don't want a body bag coming home. Yeah. Not when I'm married to what's inside that body bag. That's not something I'm ready to accept. Yeah.

And I would say even right before you proposed, a story for another day is how I didn't think we would ever get married. But right before you proposed, I started having the thought of, you know, if Andy never wants to marry and but we stay together because I love Andy, eventually our assignments are going to send us to different places. And if we're not married, we have zero. zero grounds to go anywhere with each other. Right? So when we got married, it was kind of, for me, it was, it was, it was very comforting because I thought, well, at least we're married now. So no matter what assignment we're sent on, we have this marriage card that we can be

like, we need to be together, right? Somehow. So for me, that was really comforting. It didn't really play out that way. No, it's so like any other. Yeah, your marriage is not administratively convenient. No, it is not. Now, what I will also say is that as unsexy as it was, man, it really is like a cycle.

This is a great question. This is a great. I bet this came from a parent. I love the comments that we've been getting from other married parents because they totally get us, right? The folks who are tuning in, hearing our conversations and leaving comments when they're parents and they're married, even if they're unmarried but parents or married but not parents, you can just see it in the comment that they get us. I mean, one thing we learned from living overseas is that children are like the great equalizer.

Right. No matter what culture you're, you know, a person is, if you're looking at them and they have little kids, they get you. They get you and everybody looks the same. Everybody's chasing after the toddler in exactly the same way. We used to say in human intelligence operations that the human, superpower was being a married parent. If you're a married parent and a CIA case officer, the world is your oyster.

Because basically everybody else who's of any importance that you want to target for national security secrets, it's like the probability of them either being married or being a parent. It's like 99 to 1. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. But the question I think is such a great question because we started, it was sexy. at the beginning, there was this awkwardness where our operations started to overlap that just

wasn't sexy. And then we were full-blown tandem and it was super sexy again. Yeah. Because everything we did was coordinated. Everything we did was a dance. We would have classified conversations in a shower because it's the only place that we knew we weren't bugged. So it's like it was just, it was super sexy again until we like tapped into management and

then we got pulled apart again. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I would say that, you know, being fully tandem on the same assignment really highlighted our strengths together because you and I are basically complete opposites. So different. So different from each other. But being able to work together in that capacity really highlighted how strong we are together, which, you know, fast forward has really, you know, like born fruit in our business, right? Because... It doesn't make it easy.

No. None of it's ever been. We're so opposite. Nothing's easy. Yeah. But you just, we can't argue with the effectiveness. And that's as depressing as that is. Like, I love you very, very much. And I mean everything I tell you when I tell you that you're good for me and you make me a better man and you make me a better person.

All of that stuff is true. But you're also so incredibly efficient at working with the areas where I'm weak. It's so glorious. Yeah. And you have, for me, you know, I'm very in the detail. and you have this vision that I could never, I could never come up with the kind of vision and the ideas that you have.

You're very conceptual. It's just my brain doesn't work that way. And so I need you, right? And I'd like to think you need me. We'll just leave it there. Because you want to like me later. So want to like you later. Fair point.

So great question. And I think that that that's the truth for so many, Yeah. Individuals who are spouses, who are parents, who are married within CIA, the amount of interaction they have together on operations changes. Yeah. And we got out when we were mid-career, mid-career and successful, but the people who stay in there for 15, 20 years, 25-year careers, I can only imagine how that cycle of overlap and then

disconnection and connection and disconnection. That must just wear them down in a way that I can't even imagine. Yeah, I mean, the sacrifices that families endure long term in those careers, not just CIA, but Department of State, the military, you know, it really is a sacrifice that individuals are making to stay in a career that really is important to the nation. And to them, and because they are truly trying to be national servants, public servants. Yeah. And that's not something that makes news headlines. That's not something that makes it into movies or TV shows.

Right. The very real people making very real sacrifices in their own very real lives. Yeah. And then one day they retire. Maybe they get their partial pension because that's the way it works now. Yeah. And they get a little award and a plaque that they put on a wall and that's it. And they remain a silent sentinel until the day they die.

Yeah. Yeah, and we are that much safer for it. Yeah, and at least you and I are just eternally grateful. Yeah, absolutely. If they weren't doing the job, we might still have to do the job. Exactly. But because of them, we have the option to be doing what we're doing instead. Yes.

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